The Fifth New Beginning

Its been awhile since I last wrote. I'm finally breaking the silence. We started our new semester a month ago and things are going fairly well. Things were so crazy last semester that the person in charge of the program (whoever that might have been at the time, we've had a few) would usually say, "its a new start, a new beginning". Well, this is our fifth new beginning and this time it seems to be going smoother than it ever has. This month has gone by really fast. I like my two classes and they have me teaching "advanced" again but really its one advanced class and one intermediate class. The difference between their knowledge of English is pretty big. So far I like my students quite a bit. Their personalities are very different from my last students. Oh, I forgot to mention I'm teaching at a different college now. I like it much better. It is better lit, they have better buildings, we actually have a copy machine now, and there is a lot more color (rather than the typical grey, tan, and brown). We also changed our teaching time. Ever since I got here we have been teaching 4:00pm-10:00pm. Now we are teaching from 1:00pm-6:35. So far I like it better, but we've only been doing it for two days now. Awhile back Chris and I went with one of his students to his father's farm. It is located in a little town called Jalajil (about an hour and a half North of Riyadh). When we arrived it was really late, but the student's father and his friend were sitting in their tent drinking tea which every Saudi does. We went and sat with them and talked for awhile. Its always funny when people offer us tea and coffee (which happens a few times every week) because we always refuse. They are always surprised because we tell them we can't, its "haram" which means forbidden. They give us a funny look and offer us water and milk and we tell them that is haram too (as a joke) and that really surprises them - then they laugh. Saudi's are very hospitable to their guests. This is where we stayed the first night. We just slept on the floor. It was a surprisingly cold night but this room wasn't cold at all....just uncomfortable for sleeping.

Here we are eating breakfast with Chris's student, and the student's father and friend. We ate the food in the tent they had outside. It was very nice.

The father showed us around his farm and introduced us to the animals. This huge monster he lovingly named Saddam (after Saddam Hussein, the father really does love Saddam quite a bit). He opened Saddam's cage so we could get a picture, but we were literally seconds away from getting rammed by him.

Here is the goat pen. This is Chris's student displaying a baby goat for us.

Here is the farm. This town is located in an oasis, the perfect, and only place to actually have a farm in Saudi Arabia.

Chris's student drove us out into the desert to show us some sites. We came upon a little bedouin camp where we saw this baby camel. In this picture it is 5 hours old. It couldn't even really stand by itself, so the bedu man propped it up on its little legs for us. The baby wasn't happy because it kept making camel sounds (which are extremely ugly by the way and hard to imitate).

Another picture of the new camel. It looks kind of wooly like a lamb.

We went further into the desert so we could see these cave things in a big rock wall. Its funny he thought this would be something of a tourist site for us (little did he know we have stuff like this just about everywhere in Southern Utah).

Here we are in the "cave".

These were cool. Jalajil is an old town. It has modern houses but there is also a section of the town that looks like this. Ancient houses, I think hundreds of years old that are today uninhabited.

More of the old town.

And finally, the last meal we ate before coming back to Riyadh. Its Kappsa, but instead of the usual chicken and rice, this is CAMEL and rice. It was really pretty good. At first it tasted like roast beef but then it kind of took on a flavor all its own. Good stuff (it wasn't the baby camel we saw earlier).